This copy is for your personal non-commercial use only. To order presentation-ready copies of Toronto Star content for distribution to colleagues, clients or customers, or inquire about permissions/licensing, please go to: www.TorontoStarReprints.com

I show up on time for reservations. (How can I fault a restaurant if I throw off their timing?)

I sit where I’m told. (Even the worst seats are good review fodder.)

And I never complain. (That’s what this column is for.)

Which is why at THR & Co., I move without a fuss when the server tells me she needs my table back, even though I haven’t yet ordered dessert.

I’d waited 30 minutes for someone to take an initial drink order and another hour after that for the main courses. Good thing I’m dining with someone interesting.

More than two hours after we sit down, the waitress asks us to move to the bar for dessert. It’s inelegantly done. She’s distracted and writes down only part of our order. We’re ignored at the bar. There’s no discount on the bill.

After two review dinners, the only nice thing I can say about the Harbord St. restaurant is that they do a good fish fillet.

THR & Co. is both a spinoff from and an acronym of The Harbord Room three doors down.

Harbord Room chef/co-owner Cory Vitiello and four partners opened THR & Co. last May, filling the 80-seat space that was once Messis with curved leather booths, antiqued walls and light fixtures made from old crystal decanters.

Designer Brad Denton installed a modern coffered ceiling with acoustic panels that cushion the ricocheting conversations and classic alternative rock. It’s popular for adult birthdays; one young man gets a Breitling watch.

Curt Martin, Vitiello’s former No. 2 at The Harbord Room and, at 38 years old, one of the owners, is in charge of the short menu.

Pizzas are burnt. Seasoning is erratic. Visuals are strange.

Black homemade squid-ink spaghetti ($21) is ridged like worms. It is bland, but not as bland as the $18 mushroom papardelle, the pasta equivalent of a test pattern. At the other end of the spectrum is a chicken breast ($24) in green mole that’s as salty as Bolivia’s Salar de Uyuni.

Here, Latin American and Mediterranean foods meet in strange and uncomfortable ways. It is a grab bag of flavours and styles in your choice of portion size.

Side dishes — caramelized Brussels sprouts with sesame and pomegranate seeds, roast cauliflower with sumac, beets with burnt orange and mint —sound great on paper but fail to register on the fork. Ottolenghi would not be flattered.

The $7 sides also pad the bill, as does with the $7 bread plate the server pushes one night.

I go along. (I’m obedient that way, too.) Turns out to be crackers, toasted sourdough and something brioche-like, plus two unmemorable dips.

The server, a man of many spiels, also pushes the $20 charcuterie board. Putting the serviceable cured pork and twee pickles to shame is a silky chicken liver mousse.

Only with a sea bream fillet ($24) does THR & Co. come alive, foodwise. The pan-seared skin is admirably crisp, the white flesh properly cooked and seasoned. With chermoula, grilled spring onions and a simple shaved fennel-and-radish salad, it’s a dish to wake up winter-dulled palates.

Even without being shunted to the bar, dessert ($9) goes off the rails. Too much tartness — sea buckthorn, rhubarb and buttermilk — throws panna cotta out of whack. Churros taste of frying oil. Olive oil cake is inoffensive at best, boring at worst.

So what went wrong behind the scenes in that one meal? (It didn’t happen the second time.) Was the kitchen backlogged? Did a server call in sick?

“Poor communication,” says Martin over the phone.

“Somebody probably lost the bill and forgot to punch it in and wasn’t forthcoming with the kitchen,” elaborates Vitiello.

“They should’ve explained, apologized and offered dessert and a drink on us.”

More from the Toronto Star & Partners

LOADING

Copyright owned or licensed by Toronto Star Newspapers Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or distribution of this content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Toronto Star Newspapers Limited and/or its licensors. To order copies of Toronto Star articles, please go to: www.TorontoStarReprints.com